GRAND RAPIDS - Four Lansing-area men have been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution in connection with food stamp fraud at Lansing convenience stores.

Raymond Gedeon, Edward Gedeon, Youssef El-Chaer and Elias Abudaya were convicted in U.S. District Court following a USDA and FBI investigation into fraud at convenience stores, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release.

Customers at their stores were allowed to buy cigarettes or other prohibited items with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as food stamps, or get cash in exchange for them, officials said.

Raymond Gedeon and Edward Gedeon were sentenced to 24 months in federal custody, plus two years on supervised release, for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Abudaya was sentenced to six month's incarceration for food stamp fraud. El-Chaer also was convicted of conspiring to defraud the U.S. and received a fine of $1,000, court records indicate.

"The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program helps put healthy food on the table of 1.3 million Michigan residents each month," USDA Special Agent-in-Charge Anthony Mohatt said in the news release. "The criminal activities of the store owners and employees targeted during this investigation deprived needy citizens of the Lansing area access to nutritious meals."

The four men "owned and/or operated" Speedwagon Party Store on South Washington Avenue in Lansing, according to the federal indictment, which says they conspired to defraud the program between May 2009 and September 2015.

Raymond Gedeon filed incorporation papers for the store in June 2005 and was authorized to accept SNAP benefits later that year, the indictment said. He oversaw operations at the store from November 2013 to about October 2015, and was in the process of selling the store to El-Chaer in October 2015, the government said.

From about January 2012 to about September 2015, Raymond Gedeon also worked at Dollar Palace, a store at Pennsylvania Avenue and Kalamazoo Street where food stamp fraud also occurred, the indictment said.

Contact Ken Palmer at (517) 377-1032 or kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.